2017-03-12

Sarah Hoyt: Conservatives and Libertarians Come Out

We did such a dance to test both the reliability and discretion of
the other before revealing ourselves that we might as well have
developed a hanky code. [Blue for true blue Conservative, white for pure
Libertarian, red for the blood of our heroes, brown for OWL (older,
wiser libertarian), purple for squishy conservative, powder blue for
Brad Torgersen. (The powder blue care bare, with the bleeding heart… and
the flame thrower.)]

Conventions were nerve wracking because I watched myself ALL the
TIME. And you never knew how much you had to watch yourself. Suddenly,
out of the blue, at a World Fantasy the speaker, a well known SF/F
writer went on about Dean Howard, our next president. The room
erupted in applause, some people stood to clap, and I sat there, frozen,
unable to actually fake it to that point but too shocked to even put a
complaisant expression on my face.

This is one of the instances where I think if I didn’t give myself
away I gave them the impression I was not very bright and therefore
untrustworthy. Another would be the letter exchange with a gentleman
who went after my first Analog story. Another instance would be that I
actually could not help myself and defended Heinlein at all possible
occasions.

They were never sure enough that I was a – dropped voice – conservative, but they were sure enough that my books had the strangest issues with distribution and marketing....

All this was justified, you see, because in the minds of the
establishment and establishment hangers on, conservatives are creatures
shown as “right wing” on movies and tv (none of whose writers would know
a true conservative, much less a libertarian if one bit them in the
fleshy part of the *ss [and libertarians might.] They give
conservatives (which again is everyone to the right of Lenin) informed attributes
never found in the real creature: conservatives, in their crazy little
heads, are people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, ultra-religious in
a medieval fashion or a crazy-evangelical (there are some, but not
many) one.

Go to the link for more on "informed attributes". I think that's one of the key points here, where "everybody knows" that group X are attribute Y without having any basis for "knowing" this in real-life experience.